Mexico: Staying Afloat: One Family Farm’s Pandemic Struggles in Xochimilco
There are downsides and benefits to being so close to the heart of the megalopolis.
By Lydia Carey
Culinary Back Streets
Sept 3, 2020
Excerpt:
Like a lot of us, the Galicia family was looking forward to 2020. Farming along the city’s southern canals for generations, they are stewards of the chinampa agricultural system, one of the oldest on the planet. For the past eight years they have been slowly converting their man-made plot – built on top of the city’s shallow lakebeds – into a fully organic farm.
When they first started they could barely afford a hose to water the plants. Now they have their own DIY biodigester (a device that turns decomposing matter into natural gas), several biofilters on a small side canal that runs along their property and a large greenhouse that covers one section of the harvest during Mexico’s hottest months.
This is all in addition to the 400 chickens laying eggs in the hen house, a few dozen rabbits, three piglets that have grown into giants in just a few months and several hectares of cornfields, sown mainly for chicken feed but also for delicious esquites – the melt-in-your-mouth Mexican corn on the cob with mayo, chile, salt, lime and fresh grated cheese.
